Please do me the honour of not calling me Sir
Simon Jenkins



For Goodness’ sake change the system. As a wit wrote in The Times, whoever leaked the Honours List deserves a gong. The list contains hundreds of decent citizens. But it is polluted by Buggins’ turn and by evidence of government meddling. The system now suffers acute dignity deficit.
Honours do not matter much, except to those to whom they matter. They are a prize with cachet but no cash. Every country has them and Britain’s reach more deserving corners of the realm than do most. Yet those offered awards have what seems an invidious choice. They must measure their sense of personal merit against hierarchies of imperial precedence or Norman aristocracy. Recent governments have seized the job of “honouring” people from the local Lord-Lieutenants. They have centralised it and corrupted it with political correctness. I imagine that even now some demented Downing Street task force is preparing a giant computerised league table of national merit, adjusted by gender, ethnicity and relative disablement.



More invidious is that honouring people is done within Whitehall departments and thus comes within the penumbra of Downing Street. Mr Blair’s associates sold peerages for his benefit more crudely than anyone since Lloyd George. Documents leaked to The Sunday Times show his spin doctors juggling lesser honours with the same abandon they once applied to intelligence briefs. What imperial merit attaches to the entire English rugby troupe but not to the glorious Welsh one is a mystery.

Also leaked last month was a list of citizens who declined to risk their reputations by associating with such a system. Some cited republicanism, others anti-imperialism. Some professed themselves immune to the baubles of the common herd. A goodly number hoped for the Earldom of Merioneth and felt anything else was beneath them. For whatever reason, they have a right to decline. I rather admired the poet R.S.Thomas, who is said never formally to have refused any honour but merely left the post rotting on the doormat.


When offered an honour I pondered joining this galaxy. I had and have no intention of using a title. Why go through the hassle of formally accepting one? Under the Stuarts, some men paid £10,000 not to receive baronetcies, so onerous were the associated duties. After the leak I could have publicly rejected the honour and been the toast of every chattering table in town. I decided otherwise. The offer could hardly be thought political, my view of this government being oft recorded on this page. I was genuinely pleased to be recognised beyond the boundaries of my own profession. I decided not to reject but join 981 other citizens and accept the honour with gratitude.

That said, there must be a better way of doing it in future. To honour people with outdated allusions to knightly qualities and to the British Empire is absurd. All awards of nationwide recognition should be determined by a commission that has nothing to do with Whitehall or Downing Street. Awards should never go with jobs. Cities and counties should have their own local awards, as in America. If discussion of merit cannot realistically be “open” at least the process of decision can be.

As for traditional titles they should be put to new and fruitful use. As Gavin Henderson suggested in Monday's Times they should go openly to those who support charity. From James I to Mr Blair titles have been sold with varying degrees of secrecy. Let us sell them openly. I am told that one rich man has offered £5 million to a good cause in return for a gong but has been refused. Were I able, I would gladly donate him mine and await my reward in Heaven.

Copyright Simon Jenkins and Times Newspapers, 2004